Grace & Grit: A History of Ballet in Minnesota

“Graceful Grit begins with a short history of ballet, bringing its past into present-day Minnesota. This lineage traces how ballet, a euro-russe-centric dance, eventually made its foray into Minnesota. In a Saint Paul ballet studio along the Mississippi River, questions flowed from aspiring young ballet dancers. From Saint Petersburg along the Neva River, a Russian ballerina’s intriguing stories were translated and answered by her friend. No answer astounded the dancers more than the answer to the first question, Why did you start ballet? And her answer, You do not want to know war. She took the dancers on a balletic journey, starting with her life-threatening truck journey over Lake Ladoga on an ice road to how she rose to stardom and ultimately to being honored as prima ballerina assoluta. Fifty years earlier in that same studio, a ballet teacher paused reflectively during class, and while remembering his war years, shared a story. Was it the music, a student’s comment, or noticing his wife walk in that triggered this memory? The lath and plaster walls, worn floorboards with cracks and crevices, and wooden ballet barres marked with years of hand-holding enclosed a treasure vault of ballet memories. Similar to the ballerina’s answer, You do not want to know war. His story also began with war and displacement. These two dancer stories begin the nascence of ballet in Minnesota. An authentic and inclusive history of ballet in Minnesota has not been written. Differing opinions surround the questions of when and where ballet made its thriving presence in Minnesota. Historical facts may have been discussed at company parties, in dressing rooms, in class, or as a brief mention in the playbill of a ballet or dance program. Grace & Grit intends to verify ballet’s first roots in Minnesota, the people and companies who were significant conduits for its growth, and what is ballet’s role in Minnesota’s twenty-first-century dance scene. Extensive research and interviews with ballet and dance artists, choreographers, artistic directors, educators, and balletomanes provided Grace & Grit with a literary kaleidoscope of historical facts and stories. Graceful Grit will have a salient theme throughout its critical discourse: determining, revealing, and highlighting those organizations built upon a ballet foundation and dancers who adhere to a technically strong ballet foundation in training and performing. Like any art form, ballet is inseparable from prevailing cultural, social, political, and economic trends of the time. The dawning of the twenty-first-century explosion of bravura technique pushed ballet beyond the barre, studio walls, and proscenium stages. Various performance venues, including the great outdoors, and dancers of various ethnicities, socio-economic levels, abilities, and ages also took center stage. Ballet defies an absolute definition and is one of many varying dance disciplines in Minnesota. Modern, contemporary, lyrical, hip hop, jazz, tap, social, ballroom, and ethnic dance all have a valued place in the Minnesota dance scene. Graceful Grit will be the written voice for various Minnesota ballet artists and supporters. Their riveting stories and fascinating photographs of artistic athleticism will reveal Minnesota legends that ballet has already created while inspiring new dancers to create new legends”